So here they are again, the reigning rulers of western a capela
renaissance choral music performance, with their first new CD in
what seems like several years now—though an album of English
madrigals dated 2007 may have been a new one. And then
there have been some re-recordings of material recorded back in
the 1980s and some reissues and repackaging of several earlier
recordings. Their total output now approaches 60 recordings in
one form or another. Their album numbering system suggests there
have actually been 39 albums of new music made since the
beginning, this one under review being the thirty-ninth. (http://www.gimell.com/catalogue.aspx)
At any rate, it's clear that their recording career as a group
has gradually come to take a back seat to an increasingly
ambitious worldwide performing schedule; which makes great
sense. Truth is, there is very little important renaissance
choral repertoire they haven't recorded and they are extremely
popular public performers.

So listening to this latest recording, how are they doing? The
main impression I always get from the Scholars is of their
identification with the divine vision of the music they sing, a
mainly successful effort to transcend the music's basis in human
voices. Their goal seems to make all human effort disappear. And
that characteristic of their performing style is intact here.
They provide a listening experience comparable to the visual
experience of looking at a painting by Raphael, whose subjects
have about them a sense of peaceful abstraction, their thoughts
and feelings focused elsewhere, on another realm of existence.
Of course the masses of Franco-Flemish master Josquin des Prés
tend to take a singer on such a course! This is peaceful and
meditative (though not at all sleepy) music written expressly to
transport us, which if we give ourselves up to it, it surely
does. That is what the Tallis Scholars do as no one else can.

It is gratifying to see so many of the familiar names of singers
listed, whom we have grown used to over the years. How many such
groups can we recall that extend well back into the Age of
Vinyl?! The album notes remind us that the Scholars were
established in 1973, their recording label, Gimell, in 1981.

Which brings us, as it seems invariably to do these days, to
Stile Antico, the younger, more extroverted group often seen as
the Tallis Scholars's chief competition. Even singing the modest
and austere hymn-like pieces by Thomas Tallis here, Stile Antico
seem committed to the earthly flavor of the music, bringing more
personality to their delivery. To be fair, this music is
one-hundred years younger than Josquin's, and we can hear that
in its willingness to accommodate a more melodic flow and a
complementary decline in chant-like formality. But even allowing
for differences in the music itself, Stile Antico has more of
the ebullient spirit of, say, John Eliot Gardiner's Monterverdi
Choir singing Bach cantatas contrasted with the Tallis Scholars'
European restraint characteristic of a Ton Koopman choir. The
personalities of these two groups could hardly be more
different, and musically they make a fascinating comparison – or
I wouldn't waste your time talking about it!

In this their second release (the
first one is
here),
Stile Antico alternate short, simple, almost homiletic pieces by
Tallis with longer more elaborate ones by Byrd (from his
Cantiones Sacre I and II), setting him off dramatically as
one of the most eloquent composers we have had. Stile Antico
push Byrd further than most to bring out all of his lyric
qualities. Newcomers to his music could do far worse than meet
it here.

The recording engineers have mastered a wonderfully resonant
venue for this album, All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak, London.

No, I'd never heard of this late seventeenth/early eighteenth
century French baroque composer (1655-1717) either; but I have
come to trust the principal musicians on this CD as well as ATMA
itself, and so thought what the hell? Belgian Tenor Van Dyck is
also new to me, but I needn't have worried. He has studied with
peerless William Christie (Les Ars Florissants) and Rene Jacobs
and has sung for Christie, Rousset, Pierlot, and Savall, among
others. He has a perfect voice for French baroque—clear, firm,
and, like LeBlanc's, born to blend with viols, in particular
those of Les Voix Humaines.

Bouteiller writes sonorous motets, which he scores for bass
viols and organ continuo, which adds a rich foundation to the
proceedings. The subject is religious but the quality of the
music is definitely of this world—rich and sensuous; and the
instrumental accompaniment contributes mightily to this quality.
We learn from the album notes that the composer was himself a
violist. This music is utterly satisfying and does not make one
miss the considerably better known composers of his time, like Charpentier for example.

His mass for the dead (which enables LeBlanc and Van Dyck, who
solo separately in the motets, to sing together) is so beautiful
it could almost reconcile the mourners to its subject, which is
no doubt its purpose. I would much prefer to hear Bouteiller's
requiem than all of the well-meaning personal encomiums and
solace offered at most funeral and memorial services. If I have
the resources left in my estate at the end, I think I will make
'final arrangements' to have these musicians come to
Massachusetts to perform it on my behalf. What a rare piece of
musical excellence it is!

Bouteiller was a provincial composer who wrote the music we have
from him far from the center of French culture (Paris) of his
time. He is a marvel. French baroque music at its best
understood Christianity in a fully human way that this
particular group of musicians understand perfectly. Track this
CD down—not only the music but also the sound will flatter
your music systems.

This album brings us to the present, a new release from ATMA,
which like many of their earlier ones, is an anthology or
bouquet of (mainly) early music with a theme. The theme of this
program, drawing on the popular "Song of Songs" from the Old
Testament and its celebration of the close ties between earthly
and divine love, is precisely that. Love as sung about here is
involved with spring and rebirth, sometimes with religious
overtones, sometimes not, their closeness, many of us believe,
to each other in origin being the point. This is music written
to explore the feelings common to both 'kinds' of love: the
territory where they overlap or, as Christians tell us, where
one evolves into the other. The musicians are all new to me. The
soloists, who when singing as a group in Montreal call
themselves Les Voix Baroque, do not seem to be Canadian, which
is a new development for the label. Their resumés feature
considerable international experience—and their voices reflect
this. I do not know about the instrumental musicians but would
guess that they are Canadian. The recording was made in the
Church of St. Augustine in Quebec.

An anthology which depends as much as this one does on its theme
to hold together must be attended to with some concentration for
the program to be appreciated as more than a musical floral
arrangement—and, unlike many 'concept albums,' this one repays
close attention. While the focus is primarily on renaissance and
baroque composers, both Healey Willan (Canadian composer, 1880 -
1968) and William Walton of the twentieth century appear,
disrupting our musical expectations in curiously effective ways.
The album notes are excellent and help to bring out the theme.

Bob Neill, in addition to being an occasional equipment and
regular music reviewer for Positive- Feedback Online, is also
proprietor of Amherst Audio in Amherst, Massachusetts, which
sells equipment from Audio Note, Blue Circle, Manley Labs, and
JM Reynaud, among others.